Volume 49, Number 1 · January 17, 2002
Ghost Town
By James Fenton
London: The Biography
by Peter Ackroyd
Nan. A. Talese/Doubleday, 801 pp., $45.00
Speaking of places that have remained 'objects of London fear,' Peter Ackroyd tells us, 'It is believed the cries of drowned Jews, murdered in the great expulsion of 1290, can still be heard at low tide near Gravesend.' Excuse me. Who 'still' believes this? And if they do indeed believe it, in what way does that belief affect them? Do they come staggering back to London, their hair turned white, their whole bodies shaking, and do they grasp our forearms with their bony fingers and say, 'I too have heard it, the cries of the drowned Jews at Gravesend! It is without doubt the most horrifying sound in the world, and I shall take that terror with me to the grave!'
Review, 1553 words
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